Balancing act
After a brief pause the vaccination drive in Jammu and Kashmir has once again started t pick up. Though the pace cannot be termed as satisfactory but lot of efforts are needed to make the drive a success with the reach out to the public being maintained with full gusto.
The administration has also felt the need for a massive rollout of special vaccination drives for high risk and vulnerable groups within the 18-45 age category and now a plan is being finalized to set the ball rolling.
The administration is planning special vaccination drives initially being kick-started in 8 districts having the highest disease caseload and positivity ratio and will be extended to all the districts once the supply of vaccines increases. The rollout will begin in Anantnag, Baramulla, Budgam and Srinagar districts of Kashmir, and Jammu, Kathua, Rajouri and Udhampur districts of Jammu.
Even the target groups have been identified considering their risk assessment and vulnerability to the disease. It was directed that as a part of the special vaccination drive, additional dedicated vaccination centres are established for centralized and fast-tracked coverage of all identified beneficiaries after proper verification.
Given the situation that is arising and the opinion of the experts that covid is here to stay, a viable strategy needs to be framed regarding the vaccination so that people can be inoculated so that they can go out to work and still manage to escape or fight the virus.
Primarily, a plan needs to be devised to strictly implement testing, tracing and asking people to strictly follow COVID appropriate behavior in all sectors. Secondly, a massive vaccination drive needs to be started to challenge the situation arising out of sharp rise in the number of COVID cases.
Considering the deterioration in the COVID scenario a comprehensive approach of the Governments needs to be adopted to meet the challenge. This includes massive vaccination drive across the country so that the fight against covid can be more organized.
The governments need to ensure a multi-sectoral response in addition to swift vaccination drives to cover maximum population of the target age groups to prevent subsequent waves of infection especially in the wake of emergence of mutant strains of the virus.
We have already witnessed the fragility of our healthcare system. If the situation tends to grow like this then the healthcare facilities will once again witness the same burden that it had to undergo during 2020 and during the past two months.
We in Jammu and Kashmir have witnessed more than 3000 deaths by covid-19 and lakhs have been infected. However, given our limited resources we have so far managed to avoid serious damage to the health and overall well being of the people here.
Though some complacency did figure during the past several months at some places but we cannot ignore the virus threat especially when a situation needs to be worked out where lockdowns can be avoided to ensure that the economy too does not collapse.
